


Coming Up Easy

by salvadore



Category: British Actor RPF, Social Network (2010) RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-01-01
Packaged: 2018-01-21 04:22:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1537346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salvadore/pseuds/salvadore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gangly British boy marries neurotic cat lover after meeting in make-believe Surrey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coming Up Easy

Andrew is driving on his motorbike down the small paths of town when he spots the young man with curly hair hefting a large, especially when compared to the length of the man's back, backpacking bag. There is a sleeping bag strapped to the top and the man sways a bit under the load.

Andrew has never been so happy to see a stop sign as he is in the next moment, when he gets to legally stop and watch as the man and the backpack struggle; thin fingers working at the straps until they are straight on his shoulders, he adjusts the weight with a shrug before moving forward once more. He shuffles and Andrew smiles because it is kind of endearing the way the man’s lips twist up into a look of frustration, and not in the way that makes Andrew feel better about going into work, but because the man’s lower lip is caught beneath a row of teeth and is turning pink.

Andrew watches as the man stumbles past on his way toward the bus depot, where there is always a queue of tourists preparing for a tour of England, and just as disappointment is settling like a blanket, Andrew is jolted back into the present by the honking of a horn. Startled, Andrew fumbles to turn the engine back over before he scoots down the road at a bumping speed, wanting to watch the figure in his side mirror as he, sleeping bag and all, heads for the line of people loading up on the tour buses. But Andrew is, despite what some would say, a responsible driver and gives up on staring so he can get to work all in one piece.

For the rest of the day he is slightly dejected in a way that he just shrugs off. It’s less about his missed opportunity to watch the very attractive young man embark on the tour bus, and more about how the man and his bags will be gone by the time Andrew’s shift is over. Probably never to be seen again. There is a whole country to see, and what tourist would want to stay in Andrew’s small hometown?

Despite how lovely it is, in Andrew’s opinion.

 

 _Knightley's_ was once a bookstore, though Andrew isn’t sure how long ago that might have been.

He is relatively certain that the small, eccentric coffee shop had been a small luncheonette when it was in the hands of the second Mrs. Knightly, and that it had quickly become a coffee and tea sort of establishment when her daughter, Andrew’s boss, Keira had taken over as the proprietor. But either way, _Knightley's_ was the sort of misleading spot that had once been a bookstore. It had become a quick service, drink and snack shop in hopes of staying alive. It was more profitable, you see, to have a place that served food in rush when the tourists that passed through each season seemed to find the little town lacking earlier on in each visit.

The reason that the small shop was so misleading was that there were still shelves of books that took up the walls from floor to ceiling. Andrew often thought getting coffee in _Knightley's_ was like getting coffee in the middle of a library. During his first week of work, Andrew couldn’t shake the sensation that a librarian would appear at any moment to scold him because the espresso machine was so loud.

Most of the books on the shelves are old, some probably antiques, and they’ve been around since that distant time when the cafe was really a book shop. The staircase to the second floor even doubles as a shelving unit, but almost no one gets the small shop mixed up for a bookstore, not anymore. Most tourists hear the hiss of the espresso machine and shuffle over to queue up in front of the counter, eyes searching the fake chalk board before settling and asking, in assorted dialects, for such and such, through which Andrew grins.

Which was what made the small man leaning over the staircase, peering at the books with curly hair falling into his eyes, so humorous. Andrew watched the figure, familiar even without his overly large backpack, and Andrew had to press his fingers to his lips so as not to set free a loud laugh. Andrew watched the man draw his fingers down the spines of a red leather-bound book, the young man's pink lips pursed and his eyes narrowed behind thin framed glasses as he perused the shelves. The man looked engaged, intrigued in a way that Andrew has yet to be when first introduced to a book of any size, and Andrew’s lips thin out into a smile before he can stop them.

“For heaven's sakes, what are you smiling at?” Keira asks with an eyebrow arched and a smile at the corner of her lips, lightening her tone. She has a pen tucked behind her ear and a highlighter poised above her textbook. Turning to look over her shoulder in the direction of Andrew’s gaze, Keira falters, and then slumps in her chair as she watches the young man pull the book from the shelf and begin thumbing through the pages. She and Andrew watch, more than a little enraptured, as he actually sits down on the first step of the stairs and begins reading the book.

“Huh,” Keira says. Andrew hums back at her at just as much of a loss and they continue to stare.

“What if he wants to buy the book?”

Keira whirls around to look at Andrew, startled, as if the idea had never occurred to her.

“But we don’t sell books.”

Andrew refrains from rolling his eyes at his boss and instead watches as more customers keep coming into the shop, some without noticing the young man on their stairs and other with smiles. One of the little old ladies who have a habit of stopping in for tea on their way to the craft shop two windows down actually looks at the shelves lining the wall while they wait in line. Keira is taking it all in with a look of determination, as if she is going to have to stop utter anarchy instead of people pulling books down from their shelves. She is tapping her highlighter against her text and it's all Andrew can manage to fill orders without falling to the floor behind the counter in a mess of laughter.

Andrew is turning back from the cappuccino machine, pouring the hot latte into a take-away cup for a tourist when he sees the young man, the book tucked beneath his arm and all, standing at the counter.

“Thank you,” the tourist says as he pulls it from Andrew's fingers. Andrew nods jerkily, smiling a second later than he should as he wishes him a good day before he turns back around.

“Do you have green tea,” the young man asks, swaying on his feet and squinting up at the menu.

And Andrew smiles back at him, nervous energy contained somehow while he says, “We have a few different types. I suppose the first question is whether you want it hot or cold?”

He leans his hand in his chin as he watches the man's lips twist then settle in a frown that he clamps down on with his front teeth.

“Do you have normal green tea, with a tea bag and in a cup of hot water?”

Andrew knows it's rude and that it doesn't answer the man's question, but the emphasis he puts on certain letters reminds him – distantly – of his father's side of the family. It's not that they don't get American in the cafe, or even that they haven't had people from California whose accents are so much closer to what Andrew knows as familiar. It's that something about the man from the angle of look up at him as he leans on the counter makes Andrew ask, “Where are you from?”

The man rears back, not in an over dramatic or even comedic fashion, but subtly with his eyes going wide-ish and Andrew stands up straight. There is babble at his lips that he nearly utters in a rush to apologize before he is interrupted.

“New York.”

Andrew smiles and extends his left hand as he says, “Andrew, I'm from L.A. originally. It's why I ask,” and the tension around the man's mouth and eyebrows settles as he smiles back and says, “I see that – I, I mean it's written on your name tag. And I'm Jesse.”

“Nice to meet you, Jesse. I'll get you that regular cup of tea.”

Andrew brings a cup with a saucer as well as a small, tin tea pot of hot water to the table Jesse has settled at. It's the only one not in front of the cafe's bay window, in some way, and Andrew just keeps this little observation to himself as he sets the items down. Jesse looks up from the red-bound book to give a half-smile before reaching for both packets of green tea that Andrew had perched on the saucer. Andrew shuffles back to the counter, walking backwards the whole way and only stumbling a little on his way. Then he manages to get behind the register, his eyes still not moving away from Jesse's ducked head as he flips another page, stirring the tea with one hand and having to stretch nearly across the table to do so because he pushed all of the items as far from the book as he could manage.

“Alright Garfield, back to work. I’m not paying you to ogle my customers,” Keira says obnoxiously loud and with a smirk.

Andrew chuckles, ducking his chin to hide it because _said_ customer is watching them with narrowed eyes as if he suspects that he is being talked about. Turning to the cappuccino machine, Andrew busies himself with cleaning it so he has something to do other than grinning until those blue eyes were wide and those prominent cheekbones were displaying a pink blush.

 

Andrew isn't expecting to see Jesse again; he remembers the backpacking bag and rationalizes that at some point Jesse is going to leave. Except it's three days of making tea for Jesse and watching Jesse read because he is there as soon as Andrew's shift starts and is still there when Andrew is leaving in the mid-afternoon. In the morning of the fourth day, Jesse finishes the red-bound book that, really, Andrew keeps meaning to find out what it is but he never manages to get a peek before Jesse gets it in his hands and settles in at the same table, and Jesse gets up to put it back.

Jesse's hands are reverent as he slides the book back onto the shelf, fingers lingering on the spine just a breath too long like he is caressing something in need of soothing and then he slowly moves along to scrutinize the books on another shelf.

At the table nearest the counter, Keira is looking stressed out, though Andrew is absolutely certain that he is the only one who can tell, and she is tapping her pen while she chews on her highlighter. She is eying her watch in between edits to the papers spread over and under her textbooks. Typically Keira takes the afternoon shift that lasts until early evening after Andrew leaves, and Andrew thinks that just this once he can work the whole day. If his reasoning is skewed in favor of getting a chance to work up the courage to flirt with Jesse than it shouldn't matter because Keira still gets the evening off.

“Why don't you take the afternoon off, I can easily close shop tonight,” Andrew says, leaning over the table and bending at his waist at the same time so Keira doesn't have to crane her neck to look up at him. She lifts up from her slouch over her books and eyes him, scrutinizing his face as a lazy smile curves her lips, with a short turn of her head Keira pinpoints Jesse's location and then immediately turns back to Andrew, rolling her eyes at him.

“It's only a few extra hours for me, I'm sure you need them more than I do,” Andrew rationalizes holding onto the table with his arms stretched to either side as he gives Keira his best smile. She makes a show of being put off even as her lazy smile becomes something even sweeter. She tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear before tipping fully back into a sprawl in her chair.

“You should take a quick lunch and I can cover you for a half-hour before I leave,” Keira says. Mentions something about planning to tease him later if this all goes his way before waving him off to handle the group of tourists that have wandered in during the time in between.

 

Andrew is taking off his apron when Keira blinks blearily up at the clock, slowly reaching to gather her things. She takes her packed bag with her behind the counter while Andrew swallows and watches Jesse pull a slightly newer book from the shelves beside the the frame of the large window, finding the one from the morning lacking, Andrew assumes, because it has disappeared from the table while Andrew has been busy with cappuccinos and hot chocolates for groups of school children and teenagers who have appeared with school over for the day.

Jesse slumps against the window frame for a moment, flipping the pages with his thumb with the sun beaming in because of course it isn't raining today. Keira snickers from behind the register clearly thinking, like Andrew, that Andrew's life _is_ this sort of dream-like cliché.

The nervousness makes his throat tight and it is too much to go over to Jesse right this moment without an excuse. Scurrying back behind the counter, Andrew retrieves two sandwiches from the glass case and puts them on plates, one turkey and one of Keira's cream-cheese and veggies just in case. He gets a cup of coffee for himself and meets Jesse at his table.

Jesse falters, his chair partially pulled out from beneath the table to watch as Andrew stands, rocking back and forth as he holds the plates aloft. Andrew lifts them both a little higher as he says, cautiously, “I come bearing sandwiches.”

When Jesse just jerkily nods his head in response, Andrew shrugs his shoulders and then reaches with his foot to pull the opposite chair out from under the table. He sets the plates down and seems to juggle them for a moment before getting them to the table without spilling his coffee. Andrew waves at the vacant chair that he has pulled out and waits until Jesse nods, ignoring the way the other man hangs his head and watches his own fingers trace the lettering of the book so as to avoid looking at Andrew.

“I'm sorry,” Andrew says. “I'm not bothering you, am I? Because I can go if I am, the sandwiches can stay – will stay. They're on the house?”

Jesse looks up from the book to smile at Andrew. It is so sudden, obviously truthful even though it is small, that it makes Andrew fumble with his coffee cup before taking a large sip from the hot liquid to cover it up. The smile is still there no matter how much blinking Andrew does.

“They don't have to be on the house,” Jesse says as he pushes his books gently out of the way to clasp his hands together and lean on his elbows on the table. Andrew begins to protest that no, they really are on the house, and Jesse points at the sandwiches and asks, “What are they?”

“Turkey or vegetarian.”

Jesse reaches for the cream-cheese and veggies, faltering for a second to give Andrew a curious look that Andrew quickly, earnestly waves away. There is a grin on Andrew's face because watching Jesse inspect the sandwich with the still present, still so small smile is going to be the highlight of his week. Drawing the turkey sandwich toward himself, Andrew picks the spare ornamentation of tomatoes and onions off while Jesse takes a bite from the veggie sandwich.

“So, Jesse from New York, what brings you to England?”

“I – I,” Jesse hesitates, then sets the sandwich down and after a stilted moment Andrew does the same, fingers curling around the sides of his plate.

“I'm supposed to be on my way to Prague, to be honest,” Jesse says with a laugh that comes out on a huff of a breath.

 

Andrew lets Jesse change the subject, entranced by the way that Jesse moves his hands in stilted motions as he tries to restrain himself from becoming too excited about the atlas he found. At one point Jesse begins to apologize in repetition as he tucks his hands beneath his thighs to keep from, as he puts it, flailing about and Andrew's lips spread into a wide smile. He adores Jesse in that moment, and it's because he has no control over his lips that he manages to ask Jesse to dinner.

Then Andrew back tracks quickly as he comes back to reality and hears the words hanging in the air.

“I mean, unless you have plans? It's just, if you are still going to be here when my shift ends and you don't have better plans, I know where we can get good food?”

Jesse's lips slowly turn up into a smile, so slowly but the smile is large, revealing Jesse's front teeth which he uses to chew on his lower lip and Andrew smiles back at him. They must look ridiculous, like preteens blushing at each other.

"I was going to stay until closing anyway," Jesse says.

"I'm leaving, Garfield," Keira calls. She is rounding the counter with her bag hefted up on her shoulder. She is also smirking as she wiggles her fingers in a wave goodbye on her way across the cafe. And Andrew has no other choice but to leave Jesse to his atlas and his book about the campaigns of Napoleon Bonaparte.

 

Andrew takes Jesse for Indian food, the one that he remembers having an extensive vegetarian menu which Jesse looks over with his tongue poking out between his lips. Andrew decides to order the first thing that looks good and then alternates between staring at Jesse and checking out the decor.

The room is well lit, the wall brick but the solid color of them broken up by white frames with black and white photographs inside them. There are copper pots in various sizes, Andrew is only sort of sure that one of the ones he is looking at is a wok but he's afraid to ask Jesse if he knows. It would give away too much about Andrew's inability to fix anything that doesn't get popped into the microwave. So he sits with his hands clasped in his lap and his lips pressed together while he waits for Jesse to be ready.

When their waiter has come and gone taking their menus, and thereby Andrew's only defense against saying something stupid, with him, Jesse looks up at Andrew. Jesse's fingers are pressed up against the sides of his glass as he drags them down through the condensation absentmindedly.

“Why aren't you in Prague?” Andrew asks just as Jesse asks, “Do you ask customers out often?”

They both freeze, staring with different degrees of awkwardness to their smiles. Until Jesse pulls his hand away from the glass and into his lap, he fidgets then adds, “Or just the ones that order Green Tea?”

“No,” Andrew breathes out on a relieved sigh. He grins as he says, “Only the ones that show disdain for drinks with steamed milk, order green tea, and then study atlases so they can accurately understand the battle movements in the books that they have been reading.”

Jesse's head tips back in a full laugh, his Adam's apple bobbing against the column of his throat and Andrew feels a jolt of lust along with the warm blanket of affection. He's barely known this boy four days, it's startling just how much Andrew wants to hold his hand. In only four days.

Andrew has the distinct feeling that it wouldn't take more than two weeks for him to want to move heaven and earth for this boy. Andrew watches the way Jesse's eyes look different shades of blue depending on the amount of light while Jesse's eyes roam the across the heads of the other people sitting behind Andrew. Then he looks back at Andrew, catching Andrew staring and both of them go red. Andrew can see it, the way Jesse's faint and few freckles disappear and he can the heat to his cheeks. But Jesse, unexpectedly, laughs again. It's so free and without instigation that Andrew wants to capture it, bottle it and keep it always.

After dinner has been served, consumed, and the plates retrieved, Jesse leans his elbows on the table and begins to speak without provocation, “My parents payed for a tour of Europe for me. It was a graduation present, a high school graduation present. But it's wasted on me.”

Andrew doesn't interrupt.

“I'd rather I had never left home. I'm sort of anxious, you should know. And I would have preferred to spend the month they paid for me to be abroad reading books on Russian History.”

The waiter arrives with Andrew's decaf coffee. An exchange of thanks doesn't stop Andrew from hearing Jesse say, “But reading in your shop is an adequate consolation.”

Andrew peeks up through his lashes to see a grin on Jesse's lips which he mirrors freely.

 

After their first date Andrew stays, swaying on his feet and with his hands in his pockets as Jesse walks away from the restaurant. Andrew had wanted to walk Jesse home, or to whichever hotel Jesse was staying in, but Jesse had shaken his head and said 'thanks but no,' when Andrew had offered. So Andrew watched Jesse shuffle past one light post after another until he was out of sight. Then Andrew had turned on his heels and headed for the flat that he shared with his older brother.

 

The day after their third date, Andrew is balling his apron up and calling to Keira, who had disappeared upstairs hour earlier, that he is leaving for the day when he realizes that Jesse's table isn't it's usual mess. Instead, Jesse has re-shelved his books and cleaned up his own tea cup, saucer, and plate while Andrew was dealing with the lunch crowd. Andrew looks around, probably wild-eyed and slightly manic in appearance because he _had_ been dragging his fingers through his hair earlier. But he calms down and smiles when he notices Jesse standing by the front door, his hands stuffed into the pockets of a pair of jeans Andrew isn't particularly fond of. If only because they don't properly hug Jesse's legs.

“You said something about only knowing how to make microwavable dinners and grilled cheese sandwiches,” Jesse says as he reaches out and catches Andrew's outstretched hand. “I'm hoping to test the second. That is, if I'm welcome wherever it is that you live. Which you haven't said, by the way.”

“You're right, I've been remiss,” Andrew replies, laughing at himself the moment the words leave his lips. He leads the way out of the cafe and around the corner. Their sneakers make slapping sounds against the sidewalk because the concrete is wet from raining earlier in the morning. The clouds above are gray and heavy looking, Andrew remarks to Jesse that it will probably rain as he drapes his arm over Jesse's shoulder. Pulling Jesse into his side, Andrew slides his free hand into Jesse's, which is still warm from being held. Andrew leads the way to the flat that he had his brother have been renting for nearly two years, but not quite that, and listens to Jesse tell him about a letter between Napoleon and Josephine.

Inside the apartment they part; Jesse pauses in the front room to bend forward and peer in at the framed charcoal drawings of public buildings in London. Andrew rushes past in him calling something out about making tea when really he is wondering if he had left half of his closet on the floor of his bedroom this morning, but also wanting to leave the room so he doesn't fixate on the faces Jesse might make. The drawings are his own, silly things from school that Robert had thought were worth hanging on the walls of their flat; Andrew had been too flustered to stop his older brother before the nails are in the wall.

So Andrew puts the kettle on, chewing on the nail of his thumb while he rocks back and forth in front of the stove. He stares at the red light on the stove that indicates that the burner is on and listens to the shifting of clothing, a soft cough as Jesse clears his throat, and the sound of rubber on wood as Jesse makes his way toward the kitchen. Andrew freezes when Jesse is close enough that he can feel the other man's breath on his neck.

Jesse must rise up on his toes because his arms drape down from Andrew's shoulders to rest against his collar bones. There is hot air in Andrew's ear and he is shivering when Jesse's lips press gently against the side of his neck.

“Did you draw those?” Jesse asks. And Andrew lets the soft motion of Jesse's thumbs slipping beneath his shirt to run lines back and forth over his bare skin comfort him enough to say yes.

“Yes. They're silly though, just things I did when I was in school. There are better ones in my bedroom. They're actual blue prints and not silly charcoals with only a general idea of where a vantage point ought to go.”

Jesse lays his head down so his temple is resting against Andrew's cheek and chuckles.

After they have consumed a pot of tea between the two of them, having played footsie beneath the dining room table, Andrew takes Jesse up to his room. They make out on Andrew's unmade bed; Jesse makes these soft sounds as he clings and wiggles to stay draped over Andrew's chest. Andrew has his hands splayed out over the bare skin of Jesse's back, beneath Jesse's shirt, and that's all they do. It's easy, making out with Jesse for ages. The feeling of his lips stretched to their limits as Jesse cradles his face and kisses him deep and then rolling over and returning the favor, knowing that by tomorrow Jesse's lips will be bruised (and so will his own) because of this, of them. The skylight over Andrew's bed goes dark as the clouds move and then it is pounded upon by falling rain. And they just pulls the blankets over their head to keep making out, to kiss the already visible stretches of skin between them until that gets to hot, then they kick the blanket toward the end of the bed as they laugh and giggle against each other.

The room is dark by that point. The shadows of rain sliding along the surface of the skylight are visible on the floor beside the bed. When panting for breath isn't enough, and when Andrew's lips are hot and tingling back from numbness and are on their way to feeling bruised, Jesse rolls off of him to lay shoulder to shoulder with Andrew. He slides his hand into Andrew's, their palms cupped together and fingers lacing.

“After the rain stops, will you walk me home?” Jesse asks. Andrew nearly rolls over to kiss him again.

Instead he runs his thumb gently over the first knuckle of Jesse's thumb.

 

Andrew walks Jesse back to his hotel every afternoon after his shift. Sometimes they stop off at the shops or leave later to pick up a meal, but for the most part they push and pull at each other until they are lying beneath the covers. They whisper to each other and with each passing minute Andrew's heart beats so loud and so hard that Andrew thinks that the sound should echo in the silence of the room.

“Tell me about your blue prints,” Jesse says. And instead Andrew tells him about wanting to study Architecture, about how he had moved in with his brother and had quit school to work at _Knightley's_ in the hopes of making enough money to go abroad.

“In Arizona there is this program based in and around one of Frank Lloyd Wright's compounds. The students have to build their own homes out of efficient materials.”

“Is that the sort of thing you want to build?”

Andrew babbles about skylines and flying buttresses until it is long past dinner time. Andrew's phone is alight with several missed calls because he had told his brother that, for once, he would be home to eat with him. Pulling his discarded clothes on in a rush, Andrew apologizes and kisses Jesse first hard on the mouth and then on the forehead and then on the hand before tripping through the front door.

The next day there are art supplies on the desk in Jesse's hotel room and Jesse blushes so pretty when Andrew asks about them that he can't help taking up one of the felt tip markers and chasing Jesse around.

“Don't you dare!” Jesse shrieks and writhes as Andrew hovers above him, tugging and stretching the collar of Jesse's shirt down with a grin. Despite how fascinating Andrew finds the way that Jesse rolls his eyes in exasperation and the way that they roll back because Andrew cups the backs of Jesse's thighs and his crotch to be, Andrew leans down and focuses singularly on drawing the front of the hotel it from memory just under Jesse's collar bones. He smudged the ink in places, there are blue marks around Jesse's nipples and when he has finished Jesse rolls them over to press an imprint of the hotel, with it's large sign in the parking lot and the slanted roofs with blue pane windows that don't move because there is a patio covering the sidewalk up to three feet from the doors, on Andrew's chest.

 

Andrew dances his fingers over naked skin and the contours of rib bones, and watches as the body beneath his touch shivers. Goosebumps appear across Jesse's skin like an incoming tide, and it's nearly too enthralling. Andrew is drawing his lips down all the skin he can reach, mapping Jesse's back with his fingers because Jesse is arching up beneath him with an incredulous laugh escaping his lips to punctuating the air between them. A chastising, “ _Andrew_ ,”escapes Jesse's lips, then a breathless sounds, and then another laugh.

Andrew is entranced. He admits as much in a jumble of awkward phrases, holding Jesse close as he can even as he curves his body away from Jesse's so he can kiss what he can reach.

Andrew doesn't want it to end.

“I wish I could build you a house that had a door in Surrey and another in New York. I'd -- you and I would only have to cross a sitting room to be in the same city,” Andrew says two nights later, chalk and charcoal on all of his fingers. He is smearing the dust and the coal over Jesse's skin a he gazes adoringly up at the young man. Jesse flushes but only across his cheekbones and collar bones. Jesse's hands come down heavy on either side of Andrew's head, making the hotel mattress squeak and shudder beneath them. Prayers or mantras or maybe sweet nothings, Andrew doesn't know incapable as he is of deciphering them, are pressed against Andrew's skin as Jesse bows over him and kiss down the lines of Andrew's body.

Across one wall is a blue print for a whole city, sky scrapers and bookstores for Jesse to inhabit with Andrew. Andrew doesn't say as he rolls on his side, watching Jess crash sideways beside him, panting for breath, that he would build hundreds of houses for Jesse. He would build a whole kingdom to keep Jesse in, and with each passing day Andrew's heart pounds harder because it is one day less.

And then, it's all over.

No more mornings where Keira works on her homework while Jesse sits at the same table with his atlases and his encyclopedias, mapping out the paths that long dead generals paved with their armies, and Andrew can hardly remember a time when he wasn't able to look out across the cafe and see Jesse with a pencil or his lower lip gripped between his teeth. His heartache when on the Sunday Jesse is set to fly home Keira closes the shop for the day and gets her little car out from the garage and drives Jesse, Andrew, and Jesse's bag with the haphazardly rolled sleeping bag to the airport.

At the terminal Andrew cops a feel of Jesse's ass to make him blush and runs his fingers over the collar of a sweater that Jesse seems to have stolen from Andrew's dresser. Beneath the collar Andrew knows there are two large hickies that he had wanted to make the night before. Jesse had shook under his hands, murmuring how good Andrew's lips felt and Andrew had not been much for markings or hickies before Jesse, but now he wants to take Jesse into the nearest bathroom to suck some more into the column of his neck. Instead he hugs Jesse tightly once more and begs him to write.

Keira is kind enough to hold Andrew's hand on the ride back home.

 

Andrew makes it four months before he decides he cannot stand their long distance relationship.It is strenuous and running his fingers over the paper and feeling the indents of Jesse's words is no longer he enough. He pens a postcard to Jesse saying, "I never made you that grilled cheese sandwich."

Then he packs up a duffel with his necessities while his brother watches from the doorways of the apartment they have shared.

They hug outside the airport because the cab driver won't wait for Robert to leave and return, and then Andrew leaves everything he has ever known or grown to find comfort in for another lazy morning with his nose pressed into the hollow of Jesse's throat, the scent of the young man all over him.

 

Andrew checks the postcard from Jesse that he has been carrying in his pocket three times on the stoop. He has the address memorized, but standing before the front door he doesn't believe in his ability to recall the chicken scratch lettering; he keeps expecting, even after he has stopped shuffling his feet and has finally pounded his fist twice in a steadfast fashion, that he is wrong.

The woman who answers the door is already smiling, setting Andrew at ease, and the smile though brighter is so similar to Jesse's (so much about her reminds Andrew of Jesse that he is eased by the certainty that he has found the right out.)

“I'm afraid he doesn't live here, sweetheart,” Mrs. Eisenberg says. She begins to usher him in despite that, eying Andrew's duffel in the same way his own mother does. Andrew wants to protest, and he has to quickly move his duffel from one hand to the other to get it away from Mrs. Eisenberg's reaching hands. It takes a whole minute for Andrew to process what it was that Jesse's mom had said. The postcard sticking out of his shirt pocket pokes him in the chest with a sharp corner and he winces at both the words and the card. He must look like someone poked him with a sharp stick instead because a worried look transforms Mrs. Eisenberg's face, her crow's feet disappearing while frown lines make grooves in her brow.

“He got an apartment in the city, but I'm sure he'd be pleased to see you in the morning,” she tells him with both of her hands over his one free hand. Andrew opens his mouth, probably to protest but she has already turned away, the phone already in hand as she, presumably, calls Jesse. She shoos Andrew in the kitchen where a man with spectacles is reading the newspaper while she cups one hand over the receiver.

The next morning Andrew eats breakfast with Mrs. and Mr. Eisenberg. Mr. Eisenberg peers over his spectacles at Andrew while Mrs. Eisenberg asks him a great deal of questions about what he thinks of Essex. When the plates have been cleared Mr. Eisenberg smiles widely at Andrew, similar to how Jesse might, and says, “Shall we?”

He drives Andrew into the city and Andrew doesn't have time to wonder about how Jesse will react to seeing him because he is answering Mr. Eisenberg's rapid fire questions.

 

“Oh god, your face,” Jesse says just moments after opening the door for Andrew. Andrew's smile begins to slip-slide right off his face when Jesse's eyes suddenly stop scrutinizing him and the startled look becomes one of concern. Jesse quickly adds, before Andrew can start running his hands over his face, “No there's nothing wrong with your face, come in.”

When ten minutes later Jesse and Andrew are standing rather awkwardly with no signs of stopping in the small area that one might call a kitchen Andrew asks, “Are you sure there isn't something on or wrong with my face?”

He lays one hand over his cheek and Jesse splutters.

“No! I – It's just that my mom called, or rather when she called earlier she said you looked like a kicked puppy. Which you do. I'm just standing here feeling very guilty about it.”

Andrew frowns at Jesse. Tossing the unacknowledged bouquet that he had brought with him on the counter as he moves towards Jesse, fingers out and ready to hook themselves in the material of Jesse's shirt to draw the man in toward Andrew.

“You aren't having a crisis are you, because of my face?”

“You do look sad. I can only imagine how upset you looked when my mom told you I didn't live at the address I gave you.”

“I'm not nearly all that upset. Now I don't have to worry about your parents hearing us if I can manage to convince you to have _'hello I've missed you sex.'_ ”

Jesse smiles. “I have missed you an inordinate amount.”

 

Andrew had moved into Jesse's room straight away and it should be terrifying how easy living in each other's orbits has turned out to be. But Andrew isn't terrified. He's happier than he can ever imagine having been, things aren't easy to be sure. Jesse has school and all manners of coursework cause him stress as well as keep him up at odd hours when Andrew would prefer to be sharing the sheets with him. Dreams of building large buildings and ornate structures have been pushed back, not aside, for the time being and Andrew is okay with that. They have plans and charts as well as a swear jar that Andrew pays to during the day to make Jesse's ears go red, and to which Jesse makes payments after nights of breathless cursing.

This is why, when Andrew and Jesse are sharing a particularly quiet Sunday on the couch with Jesse's fat cats wandering around underfoot, no term papers due and no bosses ringing up Andrew's phone, Andrew opens the paper and just smiles. Andrew stretches his leg and prods at Jesse's thigh with his big toe as he shakes the newspaper out and then folds it in half so that the article is front and center when he turns it. He holds it aloft as Jesse looks over and then Andrew watches around the side of the paper as Jesse's eyes move in a rapid pace, reading the article before he blushes high on his cheeks.

“Well that would be one way to keep you in the country,” Jesse mumbles.

Andrew throws his head back in a laugh.

“I'm a citizen Jess, I'm not asking you for a green card wedding.”

But after they go down to the courthouse and after each of their mothers have stopped yelling at them for getting married without inviting them, this becomes Jesse's response to every inquiry about their sudden choice to get married. It's a legitimate question, they haven't been together all of that long, and yet, to Andrew it feels like years and each question makes him feel a fierce need to sling his arm around Jesse's shoulder and list his _husband's_ best qualities.

“Don't make that puffed up look at me, Garfield,” Keira says when Andrew begins to purse his lips just because she asked. Really, though, he thinks that she of all people shouldn't ask.

“I married him for the health benefits,” Jesse says, eyes squinting and mischievous though he has them focused on his cup of green tea. Keira grins from the computer screen, squinting just off to the left as she looks at them on her computer. The picture isn't perfect and the sound cuts out every now and then, but it's almost like being back in the same room with her. When she wishes them well Andrew doesn't doubt it for a second. He kisses Jesse good bye for her just like she asked and then turns the monitor off.

“So, Mr. Garfield,” Andrew drawls. Jesse nearly chokes on air.

Then he smiles while Andrew laughs and responds with, “Yes, Mr. Eisenberg?”

There is nowhere Andrew would rather be.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written forever ago for the tsnsecretsanta, and more specifically, for quickpixie who asked for "soulmates" in her secret santa letter. 
> 
> Because I still love this, and I don't trust LJ, I decided I ought to archive this fic here. 
> 
> While this beta'd by an absolutely lovely person, it was never properly Brit-picked, and still hasn't been. The title is inspired by (as is most of this fic) Paolo Nutini's "Coming Up Easy." There's also a _Howl's Moving Castle_ reference.


End file.
